Spontaneous apperception constitutes natural logic. Reflective conception is the foundation of logic properly so called. One is based upon itself, verum index sui; the other is based upon the impossibility of the reason, in spite of all its efforts, not betaking itself to truth and believing in it. The form of the first is an affirmation accompanied with an absolute security, and without the least suspicion of a possible negation; the form of the second is reflective affirmation, that is to say, the impossibility of denying and the necessity of affirming. The idea of negation governs ordinary logic, whose affirmations are only the laborious product of two negations. Natural logic proceeds by affirmations stamped with a simple faith, which instinct alone produces and sustains.
Now, will Kant reply that this reason, which is much purer than that which he has known and described, which is wholly pure, which is conceived as something disengaged from reflection, from volition, from every thing that constitutes personality, is nevertheless personal, since we have a consciousness of it, and since it is thus marked with subjectivity? To this argument we have nothing to respond, except that it is destroyed in the excess of its pretension. In fact, if, that reason may not be subjective, we must in no way participate in it, and must not have even a consciousness of its exercise, then there is no means of ever escaping this reproach of subjectivity, and the ideal of objectivity which Kant pursued is a chimerical, extravagant ideal, above, or rather beneath, all true intelligence, all reason worthy the name; for it is demanding that this intelligence and this reason should cease to have consciousness of themselves, whilst this is precisely what characterizes intelligence and reason.[40] Does Kant mean, then, that reason, in order to possess a really objective power, cannot make its appearance in a particular subject, that it must be, for example, wholly outside of the subject which I am? Then it is nothing for me; a reason that is not mine, that, under the pretext of being universal, infinite, and absolute in its essence, does not fall under the perception of my consciousness, is for me as if it were not. To wish that reason should wholly cease to be subjective, is to demand something impossible to God himself. No, God himself can understand nothing except in knowing it, with his intelligence and with the consciousness of this intelligence. There is subjectivity, then, in divine knowledge itself; if this subjectivity involves skepticism, God is also condemned to skepticism, and he can no more escape from it than men; or indeed, if this is too ridiculous, if the knowledge which God has of the exercise of his own intelligence does not involve skepticism for him, neither do the knowledge which we have of the exercise of our intelligence, and the subjectivity attached to this knowledge, involve it for us.
In truth, when we see the father of German philosophy thus losing himself in the labyrinth of the problem of the subjectivity and the objectivity of first principles, we are tempted to pardon Reid for having disdained this problem, for limiting himself to repeating that the absolute truth of universal and necessary principles rests upon the veracity of our faculties, and that upon the veracity of our faculties we are compelled to accept their testimony. "To explain," says he, "why we are convinced by our senses, by consciousness, by our faculties, is an impossible thing; we say—this is so, it cannot be otherwise, and we can go no farther. Is not this the expression of an irresistible belief, of a belief which is the voice of nature, and against which we contend in vain? Do we wish to penetrate farther, to demand of our faculties, one by one, what are their titles to our confidence, and to refuse them confidence until they have produced their claims? Then, I fear that this extreme wisdom would conduct us to folly, and that, not having been willing to submit to the common lot of humanity, we should be deprived of the light of common sense."[41]
Let us support ourselves also by the following admirable passage of him who is, for so many reasons, the venerated master of the French philosophy of the nineteenth century. "Intellectual life," says M. Royer-Collard, "is an uninterrupted succession, not only of ideas, but of explicit or implicit beliefs. The beliefs of the mind are the powers of the soul and the motives of the will. That which determines us to belief we call evidence. Reason renders no account of evidence; to condemn reason to account for evidence, is to annihilate it, for it needs itself an evidence which is fitted for it. These are fundamental laws of belief which constitute intelligence, and as they flow from the same source they have the same authority; they judge by the same right; there is no appeal from the tribunal of one to that of another. He who revolts against a single one revolts against all, and abdicates his whole nature."[42]
Let us deduce the consequences of the facts of which we have just given an exposition.
1st. The argument of Kant, which is based upon the character of necessity in principles in order to weaken their objective authority, applies only to the form imposed by reflection on these principles, and does not reach their spontaneous application, wherein the character of necessity no longer appears.
2d. After all, to conclude with the human race from the necessity of believing in the truth of what we believe, is not to conclude badly; for it is reasoning from effect to cause, from the sign to the thing signified.
3d. Moreover, the value of principles is above all demonstration. Psychological analysis seizes, takes, as it were, by surprise, in the fact of intuition, an affirmation that is absolute, that is inaccessible to doubt; it establishes it; and this is equivalent to demonstration. To demand any other demonstration than this, is to demand of reason an impossibility, since absolute principles, being necessary to all demonstration, could only be demonstrated by themselves.[43]